What skeptical thinking boils down to is the means to construct, and to understand, a reasoned argument and — especially important — to recognize a f… - Carl Sagan

Like it or not, we humans are bound up with our fellows, and with the other plants and animals all over the world.
Our lives are intertwined.

In our earliest history, so far as we can tell, individuals held to an allegiance toward their immediate tribal group, which may have numbered no more than ten or twenty individuals, all of whom were related by consanguinity. As time went on, the need for cooperative behavior — in the hunting of large animals or large herds, in agriculture, and in the development of cities — forced human beings into larger and larger groups. The group that was identified with, the tribal unit, enlarged at each stage of evolution. Today, a particular instant in the 4.5-billion-year history of Earth and in the several-million-year history of mankind, most human beings owe their primary allegiance to the nation-state (although some of the most dangerous political problems still arise from tribal conflicts involving smaller population units). Many visionary leaders have imagined a time when the allegiance of an individual human being is not to his particular nation-state, religion, race, or economic group, but to mankind as a whole; when the benefit to a human being of another sex, race, religion, or political persuasion ten thousand miles away is as precious to us as to our neighbor or our brother. The trend is in this direction, but it is agonizingly slow. There is a serious question whether such a global self-identification of mankind can be achieved before we destroy ourselves with the technological forces our intelligence has unleashed.

Всяка среща с Халеевата комета е била повод за изразяване на надежди и страхове. Същото се отнася и до появата на ярки непериодични комети. Почти ритуално това е било време да се помолим. Ето защо за следващата поява на Халеевата комета и на кометата Хейл-Боп ние предлагаме една своя молитва: Живеем на крехка планета, от чийто грижливо опазване зависи дали ще има бъдеще за нашите деца. Ние сме само временните попечители на един свят, който сам по себе си не е нищо повече от една прашинка в невъобразимо необятна и стара Вселена. Затова нека се научим да постъпваме преди всичко в интерес на вида и планетата ни.
Тогава още неизброимо много нощи ще има хора, които да бъдат свидетели на величието на кометите, благословили земното небе.